Most Americans are unaware that the millions upon millions of dollars wasted in environmental causes come in one form or another from their pockets. Each wolf, owl, lizard and New Mexico jumping mouse takes money from each American, regardless of if we agree to the theft. Know this: our nation is a lesser nation because it cannot be energy independent and still comply with all the political agendas. We need not import another drop of oil or gas if we so desire. Take New Mexico for example: it is rich in potential for oil and gas. However, while some of the oil and gas is being harvested, much of that potential is not being used. This is thanks to lots of political action which seeks to shut down oil and gas rather than expand it. More so, it is not obvious that if the oil and gas production along with other extractives was to increase significantly New Mexico could match Alaska with a dividend paid to citizens instead of New Mexicans paying state income taxes. We could get a check rather than send a check. Read full column

Wednesday
evening, The Albuquerque Public Schools school board discussed a rough draft of
possible guidelines for managing issues involving transgender students enrolled
in the district.

APS says right now, there are 12 transgender students in the
district of nearly 90,000.

APS Policy Analyst Carrie Menapace proposed initial
guidelines. Those guidelines were based off insight from the district’s
Transgender Task Force, as well as research on decisions made in other
associations.

The guidelines include requiring a court order to change a
student’s name in school records, and a birth certificate to change the
student’s gender in school records.

They also suggest providing an alternative,
gender-neutral bathroom and locker room for students.

The Navajo Nation has opened an $8
million data center that will make wireless Internet available to 70 percent of
the reservation's population.

The Navajo Tribal Utility Authority has partnered
with a wholesale wireless provider to upgrade telecommunications services on
the Navajo Nation. The tribe has majority ownership of the venture, NTUA
Wireless LLC., while Commnet Wireless owns the rest.

The Farmington Daily Times
reports that the data center in Shiprock opened on Tuesday, with officials
opening up a laptop and quickly connecting to the Internet.

NTUA spokeswoman
Deenise Becenti says the broadband project is in the final testing phases and
Internet service should be available to residents later this year.